Date

3-10-2026

Department

Rawlings School of Divinity

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Bible Exposition (PhD)

Chair

Bitrus Cobongs

Keywords

Worship, bowing, prostration, obeisance, kneeling, submission, kingdom of God

Disciplines

Religion | Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion

Abstract

The various translations of the Scriptures use the word worship over 250 times in both the Old and New Testaments. Unfortunately, many Christians and even scholars do not understand the meaning of worship and the purpose for doing it. It is pivotal, however, for Christians to understand the meaning and purpose for worship when directed toward God so they may live in obedience to him. The thesis of this dissertation will be that although Christians presume that worship means to praise God, the Scriptures teach that worship means to bow before God as an act of submission as he establishes the kingdom of God on the earth through Jesus Christ. This dissertation will prove its thesis in two parts. First, it will provide background information necessary to understand worship. I.e., it will explain that people submit to deities in a religious context, people express their submission through bowing, and the biblical writers used certain words for bowing which are translated as worship. Second, the dissertation will analyze and critically examine the five divisions of the Scriptures to discover how the biblical writers elaborated on God’s people worshiping him in various contexts. In this analysis, the historical, literary, and theological contexts of select passages will be obtained. Additionally, the common purpose of worship will be understood through an analysis of relevant non-canonical sources. The result of this analysis will be that God’s people worshiped him as an act of submission to him as he worked to establish his kingdom through Jesus Christ.

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